Monday, March 26, 2012

In Today’s Episode of The War on Women

Three new attacks in the ongoing war on women caught my eye this weekend.

First, you’ll recall that in Wisconsin a state legislator introduced a bill that identified single-parenthood as a form of child abuse or neglect. Well, one of the co-sponsors of that legislation is so opposed to divorce that he wants to ban it, even in cases of domestic abuse.

Instead of leaving an abusive situation, women should try to remember the things they love about their husbands, Representative Don Pridemore said. “If they can re-find those reasons and get back to why they got married in the first place it might help,” he told a local news station.

Pridemore — who, coincidentally, is a co-sponsor of Republican state Senator Glenn Grothman’s “being single causes child abuse” bill … also said that while he thinks women are capable of caring for a family “in certain situations,” fathers are the only ones who provide structure and discipline. If they don’t grow up with married biological parents, Pridemore says, “kids tend to go astray.”

So, women of Wisconsin, even if your husband beats you, remember why you loved him and stick around because, you known, if you don’t, you’ll be abusing your kids. Or something. And I’d really like to hear what Rep. Pridemore would say to a woman impregnated in a sexual assault by her abusive husband. My suspicion is that Rep. Pridemore would probably be the sort of fellow who would tell that woman that she didn’t have the right to say “no” to her husband in the first place. Furthermore, what do you think he would say to a woman impregnated by a third-party rapist? I mean, I’m sure he would be opposed to her getting an abortion, but given that he views single-parenthood as a form of abuse or neglect, who is the woman supposed to marry? The rapist? Because, you know, that kid needs a father to keep from going astray. According to Rep. Pridemore, that raped mother, by herself, might not be capable of caring for her family and might even be guilty of abusing or neglecting the child by failing to get married.

Not to be outdone, a Republican legislator in Kansas compared women who are raped to … wait for it … flat tires. Seriously. How and why, you ask? Well, Kansas was debating legislation (which passed) to prohibit abortions from being covered as a standard part of an insurance policy. Instead, abortion coverage could only be obtained through an abortion rider that, obviously, only women would have to buy.

Rep. Barbara Bollier, a Mission Hills Republican who supports abortion rights, questioned whether women would buy abortion-only policies long before they have crisis or unwanted pregnancies or are rape victims.

During the House’s debate, Rep. Pete DeGraaf, a Mulvane Republican who supports the bill, told her: “We do need to plan ahead, don't we, in life?”

Bollier asked him, “And so women need to plan ahead for issues that they have no control over with a pregnancy?”

DeGraaf drew groans of protest from some House members when he responded, “I have spare tire on my car.”

“I also have life insurance,” he added. “I have a lot of things that I plan ahead for.”

In other words, women should purchase abortion insurance just in case they are raped and want to terminate the pregnancy … just like we have spare tires in our cars. Of course one might ask why women have to get a special policy; I presume a standard insurance policy that is legal in Kansas would pay the hospital bills of both men and women who were injured by a criminal. But only women would have to have coverage for a certain type of result of a criminal act.

And remember Indiana Rep. Jim Morris who criticized the Girl Scouts last month before offering a sort of half-assed apology? Well, when the Indiana General Assembly’s session was over, he took to the opinion pages of the conservative Washington Times to rehash his contempt for the Girl Scouts and their “agenda” and progressive ideals. But he didn’t limit his assault:

As for the culture wars, the left had just dispensed with the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation when they turned their attentions to me. Today, they are bludgeoning Rush Limbaugh and tomorrow they will find a fresh new target. My advice to that target is to never back down.

So far, all of the victories in the culture war have gone to the progressives. Nearly all of our most revered institutions, such as universities and major charitable organizations, have been infiltrated and transformed by agents of the left. It is hard to believe that Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and nearly all of the now reliably liberal Ivy League universities, were founded as conservative Christian seminaries, just as it is impossible to imagine what conservative industrialists, like Henry Ford, would think of the politics of the board of directors of the foundations that bear their names.

Whatever concessions we make will be followed up with angry demands that we abandon even more of our core principles. If we accept homosexual members today they will demand that we have anti-Christian leadership of our Christian groups tomorrow, as is the case at Vanderbilt University. Each new appeasement is welcomed by the left with their moving the goal post yet again, and anyone who objects, like myself, may be subjected to the full force and fury of a monolithic cultural warfare machine.

Nothing short of the destruction of our faith and values would satisfy progressives. We have been left with no choice but to refuse to cede even one more inch of ground in this bloody culture war. The time for resolve is now.

A “bloody culture war”? I’m familiar with attacks on abortion clinics and doctors who perform abortions. Both bombs and guns have been used. And I’m familiar with gays who have been beaten or even killed (strung up on a fence and left to die, in one infamous case) or so severely bullied that they have no course but suicide. Did I mention that many of those committing suicide were children? And yet Morris, on the same side apparently as those who threaten abortion clinics and bully gay teens is refusing to cede more ground in the “bloody culture war”? Look, I don’t advocate violence, but I don’t see Morris’ nose being particularly bloodied. I mean, nobody has stopped him from praying or saying really, really stupid things or even hating gays. On the other hand, it does sound like Morris is making an appeal, at least implicitly, to violence, at least it is if that’s what it takes to win the “bloody culture war”. So look for Morris and those who think like him to be on the front lines against equality for gays (maybe using a tire iron to make their point?) or at an abortion clinic protest (perhaps with a Molotov cocktail?). Remember this is a “blood war” from which people like Morris will refuse to “cede even one more inch”.

Oh, and “all of the victories in the culture war have gone to progressives”? Really? I guess that would explain the rollback of abortion rights, the defunding of programs that benefit women, children, and the poor, the expansion of tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans, votes to enshrine discrimination against gays into state constitutions, and so forth? The problem is that Morris and those like him are simply terrified of progress and the fact that many people simply don’t share his worldview that harkens back to the world portrayed in Leave it to Beaver or maybe The Andy Griffith Show (if not The Scarlet Letter). A world that tolerates gays, that recognizes that women can make their own decisions, and that values helping those least able to help themselves is apparently antithetical to people like Bob Morris. And Don Pridemore. And Pete DeGraaf.

But those are the people who are being elected to office and until they’ve been replaced by legislators who are tired of the “bloody culture war” then the fight will, I’m afraid, go on and on.

2 Comments:

Discovered your blog today. Thank you for taking a smart interest in these issues and for discussing them on your blog. A friend of mine and I started a blog for discussions like this recently, and I came across yours in my search for like-minded resources.

What kills me about this whole situation is how misguided everything is. How are these legislators even able to do the stuff they do without knowing how inflammatory and hateful it is? I'm just aghast.

I appreciate you adding your voice to the discussion. Feel free to stop by and contribute to ours as well if you like!

Thanks for stopping by and commenting. I took a quick look at your blog and I must say that I was immediately struck by its appearance. Simple yet elegant (something that I have never managed to pull off…). Anyway, I noticed that you (or one of the other bloggers) had a post about the the apparent wars waging from both left and right. Obviously, the so-called war against religion is premised on the birth control coverage mandate. In case you’re interested, that is another issue that I’ve spent a lot of time writing about:

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